#ESPECIALLY when i have to initiate it

[nickbutnodick]

coming out is harrrddddd

[cometblaster2070]

madame morrible has the worst fucking luck ever and I CAN'T because first of all after decades and decades of waiting she finally gets her most promising student yet right; she finally gets someone who actually has magic and who might actually be able to read the grimmerie and help further her and the wizard's plans and COINCIDENTALLY this student (bless her heart) is shunned and ostracized by literally EVERYONE including her own family and is desperately craving some form of parental love and affection and validation and acceptance and so madame morrible is like 'ooh this is fucking PERFECT this girl is going to be SO easy to manipulate into doing what I want what could possibly go wrong wow.'

and in comes the fucking pink lesbian.

because elphaba is shunned and hated and all of her peers avoid and detest her because she's weird and green BUT then all of a sudden?? out of nowhere??? she and her pink roommate who, mind you, had a choreographed song and dance routine which involved the entire student body in which they detailed how much they really really hate each other, got really fucking close??? now they go everywhere and do everything together??? they are attached at the hip and looking longingly into each other's eyes WHAT IS HAPPENING????

you are madame morrible and you think galinda upland is in love with your student and what is worse is that your student might be in love with galinda upland and that fucking SUCKS because how the fuck are you supposed to properly emotionally manipulate her now. and it makes absolutely zero sense to you because WHY is galinda upland, the most popular girl at shiz taking an interest in your student??? WHY IS SHE HERE, WHY IS THE FRUITY BITCH RUINING YOUR PLANS???

glinda's very EXISTENCE is a thorn in your side; her simply being herself and interacting with elphaba is probably the reason why you feel a headache coming every time you see them together and is perhaps the reason why you scream into your pillow at night because this absolute loser lesbian just being there might upend a huge fucking chunk of what you've been planning for years.

and then the fucking cherry on top of all of this your student decides to play vigilante and flies off into the sunset and then that leaves you stuck WITH her situationship who you hate more than anyone in the world and you're forced to sort of team up with her for a bit except she doesn't really know magic and she's just being sad and gay and moping about missing her girlfriend and you're sitting there FUMING thinking about how all these fucking witches are fruitier than fuck and all of them are useless to you at this point.

like this is just madame morrible at shiz after elphaba asks her to include glinda in their study sessions just realizing 'dear god I am going to be ping-ponging between these lesbians for the rest of my fucking life aren't I.'

ik she needed elphaba for the plot and for her dastardly plans but in all honesty if I was her and elphaba came up to me at 1am and was like yes please I need you to include my roommate with whom I have a homoerotic relationship in our study sessions or else I will quit right now. also, you have to go down to our party this very instant and tell her in person yourself bye and thanks, I would've just handed in my resignation letter right then and there and cut my losses.

[rumble-bee-art]

a local homosexual deals with an unfortunate crush by chewing on his hair and contemplating murder (we’ve all been there)

[wonder-worker]

A central element of the myth of [Eleanor of Aquitaine] is that of her exceptionalism. Historians and Eleanor biographers have tended to take literally Richard of Devizes’s conventional panegyric of her as ‘an incomparable woman’ [and] a woman out of her time. […] Amazement at Eleanor’s power and independence is born from a presentism that assumes generally that the Middle Ages were a backward age, and specifically that medieval women were all downtrodden and marginalized. Eleanor’s career can, from such a perspective, only be explained by assuming that she was an exception who rose by sheer force of personality above the restrictions placed upon twelfth-century women.

— Michael R. Evans, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine

"...The idea of Eleanor’s exceptionalism rests on an assumption that women of her age were powerless. On the contrary, in Western Europe before the twelfth century there were ‘no really effective barriers to the capacity of women to exercise power; they appear as military leaders, judges, castellans, controllers of property’. […] In an important article published in 1992, Jane Martindale sought to locate Eleanor in context, stripping away much of the conjecture that had grown up around her, and returning to primary sources, including her charters. Martindale also demonstrated how Eleanor was not out of the ordinary for a twelfth-century queen either in the extent of her power or in the criticisms levelled against her.

If we look at Eleanor’s predecessors as Anglo-Norman queens of England, we find many examples of women wielding political power. Matilda of Flanders (wife of William the Conqueror) acted as regent in Normandy during his frequent absences in England following the Conquest, and [the first wife of Henry I, Matilda of Scotland, played some role in governing England during her husband's absences], while during the civil war of Stephen’s reign Matilda of Boulogne led the fight for a time on behalf of her royal husband, who had been captured by the forces of the empress. And if we wish to seek a rebel woman, we need look no further than Juliana, illegitimate daughter of Henry I, who attempted to assassinate him with a crossbow, or Adèle of Champagne, the third wife of Louis VII, who ‘[a]t the moment when Henry II held Eleanor of Aquitaine in jail for her revolt … led a revolt with her brothers against her son, Philip II'.

Eleanor is, therefore, less the exception than the rule – albeit an extreme example of that rule. This can be illustrated by comparing her with a twelfth century woman who has attracted less literary and historical attention. Adela of Blois died in 1137, the year of Eleanor’s marriage to Louis VII. […] The chronicle and charter evidence reveals Adela to have ‘legitimately exercised the powers of comital lordship’ in the domains of Blois-Champagne, both in consort with her husband and alone during his absence on crusade and after his death. […] There was, however, nothing atypical about the nature of Adela’s power. In the words of her biographer Kimberley LoPrete, ‘while the extent of Adela’s powers and the political impact of her actions were exceptional for a woman of her day (and indeed for most men), the sources of her powers and the activities she engaged in were not fundamentally different from those of other women of lordly rank’. These words could equally apply to Eleanor; the extent of her power, as heiress to the richest lordship in France, wife of two kings and mother of two or three more, was remarkable, but the nature of her power was not exceptional. Other noble or royal women governed, arranged marriages and alliances, and were patrons of the church. Eleanor represents one end of a continuum, not an isolated outlier."

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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[sysig]

Gift (Patreon)

[canisalbus]

Hello! I hope I won't sour your mood with this ask but I have been thinking a lot about your gay dogs this month especially.

I'll just try to keep the context short but in general I'm someone that has accepted being romantically undesireable. It was hard but in the end I have built my life just around me, my humble family and at this point in time I don't even think I have the time for a partner. And considering that it's the love month and a lot of people are preparing to celebrate it with their SOs I assumed that, actually, this is a thing that I sort of have in common with Machete.

From the miscellaneous lore on your profile I see Machete as someone that also has kind of rejected love. That also has built his life around his job, possibly hobbies, his family or mentors (depending if we're talking about canon or modern au). Who kind of forgot that relationships are a thing and that people bond with others in that way. Well, at least he did until meeting Vasco.

I just love thinking about their awkward beginnings. Machete being 100% sure that Vasco is just joking, maybe even sometimes teasing him (in a friendly banter type way) or just explaining to himself that all that kindness and interest is just him being a very considerate friend. And then we have Vasco that just tries to be subtle, as if he was trying to pass a fawn without it noticing and running away, but also with time gains confidence and tries more risque moves. Vasco being all smug and Machete being flustered when their hands or shoulders or tails brush in passing. And then when both are sure of their feelings we have Machete who has to choose between God and his love. Who, at first, unwillingly accepts that divine wrath will be worth their brief love.

I just love your boys. I swear they are all the love supply one might possibly need

Thank you for such a long and thoughtful message! I don't know why you thought you might accidentally sour my mood, I'm utterly delighted whenever I hear that someone has been pondering my little guys (rotating them in their head, as they say), and when they go through the trouble of sharing their findings and conclusions I'm so happy I could crawl up a wall.

I think you deciphered Machete's inner workings very well, especially those of the original canon version. The concept of love is of course prominent in Christianity, so even as a kid being raised in a religious environment that discouraged overt displays of affection and close personal bonds, Machete wasn't completely alienated from it. But it has always been a nebulous, unperceivable and unattainable thing for him. When he was old enough to lock down his career choice he readily accepted he'd never have romantic relationships, spouse or a family, and I think he must've been too young and socially inexperienced to think of it as a significant loss. Either he consciously blocked out the need for companionship by studying and working like his life depended on it, or he didn't really consider that being genuinely befriended, appreciated and loved as a person instead of a respectable and competent authority figure was even an option for him, at least not until Vasco came along.

[timothyslucy]

they really weren't kidding about the rom-com vibes in this season.

[arlathen]

it's funny that andrastianism was right but like a thousand years too early. like no a god and his (once?) mortal beloved didn't inhabit the golden city but. they do now.

[starbuck]

Was thinking earlier about “People are not stupid, Ives.” “Really?” and how Ives’ self-centered misanthropy is so important within the larger thematic context of American Imperialism. Imperialists prioritize their own interests over all others since they believe that those they have deemed “others” are unworthy of human consideration. On an individual level, this comes down to believing that you are better than other people, more worthy of life and happiness. 

This is how Hart ends up working with Ives as a willing coconspirator… Even before Colqhoun’s arrival, Hart clearly looks down on the other residents of Fort Spencer. He describes them so uncharitably to Boyd that it isolates Boyd from everyone before he’s even met them. Hart hates his job and the life he lived that got him there and he copes by believing that he is, at least, a superior type of person to everyone under his command. 

In that way, Hart killing his former comrades in cold blood doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the logical conclusion of his superior, misanthropic perspective pushed to the extreme. He’s better than them, so why SHOULDN’T he kill and eat them? Don’t you understand? You have to KILL! to live! You have to KILL!!!!!!! 

[crispycreambacon]

Hi y'all. I hope you all are well :)

Happy new year first of all. If you're still here with us, thank you. Thank you for getting through 2024, and thank you for being here. I hope 2025 will be kind to you 🫂

Second of all, I'm not sure if anyone is still here, but if there is someone: I'm sorry for disappearing so suddenly. Life really got in the way due to college, and I can't guarantee this next semester of college won't be very busy for me either. I've been trying to work on my personal life, and part of that was avoiding social media. I'd like to come back, but I'll be reducing the amount of time I spend on here.

If you'd like to know more about what else has happened to me, read on. If not, I wish you well, and I hope you'll still welcome me with open arms.

CW // TRANSPHOBIA, MENTAL HEALTH

If I can be vulnerable for a minute: things have gotten really bad for me last December. I came out to my mom, and it went so badly that I ran away for a little bit. I came back for personal reasons, but now I live with parents who refuse to acknowledge my identity and continue to refer to me with my deadname and AGAB. Moreover, I got triggered really badly at some point during the holidays, and it has led to me realizing I can't keep living like this. I need help.

Thankfully, my college provides mental health services, and from what I heard from other students, they're pretty good. They also provide tests which I definitely need. I can't keep living the undiagnosed lifestyle, y'all, I need to know what's going on with my brain shsldhskshs... I have some clues though. Nothing definitive yet, but I am pretty confident in my suspicions, and whether I'm right or wrong, I just want to figure out what's going on and manage it, start to heal and move on from the trauma I've endured both as a child and now.

I hope this update will suffice. I'm eternally grateful for my friends. They have kept me from absolutely losing it, and they have stuck with me at my worst moments. I love them so dearly, and if they are reading this: thank you :)💞

And to everyone else, thank you for taking the time to read. I'd love to know how y'all have been, so please let me know. I love you all. Please stay safe, and may life bring you the happiness you deserve 🫂

[panncakes]

"Drive safely."

LAWS OF ATTRACTION (2023)

[presidentheartbeat6]

cuties (:

[astralhope]

While I was rewatching the first Zexal episodes, I noticed something interesting: aside from stuttering his name the first time they met, Yuma never referred to Astral by his name until episode 6. He only referred to Astral as “ghost”, “spirit”, or “this guy”, or simply “you” when talking directly to him. At the beginning of episode 5 Yuma is saying to Kotori and Testuo that Astral had repeatedly told him the day before to call him Astral. Furthermore, since Kotori and Tetsuo didn't have any idea that Astral had a name, shows that Yuma had never said his name while they were around.

I don't think that being called like that was a bother to Astral initially, (he wasn't even sure that Astral was his name when he crashed on Earth), but, probably, after knowing the name of the place he was from (and that he had a mission to fulfill), he started to have a more strong sense of himself and wanted Yuma (who was the only person who could see him) to call him by his name (and also wanting Yuma's friends to use his name and not calling him “ghost”).

In this scene, Yuma says Astral's name, but he is just repeating what Astral had said to him.

The first time Yuma calls Astral by name properly and directly to him is during episode 6, after Tokunosuke took control of Leviathan Dragon and Astral's condition worsened. And after that, he calls Astral's name two more times, trying to get him to answer.

Astral, instead, tries to use Yuma's name from the start... with poor results.

But in the next episode, when talking to himself, he refers to Yuma with his correct name (while Yuma calls Astral a ghost or similar even when he was talking to himself).

Astral calls Yuma with his correct name for the first time during episode 3, when he tells Yuma to duel against Mr. Ukyo because he has a Number.

It's kind of ironic that it took more than one episode to make Yuma and Astral say the other's name, seeing how the more the show progresses, the more these two end up screaming each other's name.

[junoverses]

I love being the defender of games that end up being kinda polarizing in their respective communities. I fucking adore Zero Time Dilemma for how stupid it can be, Nirvana Initiative might be my personal favorite Somnium Files game (at the very least until we maybe get that third game,) Danganronpa V3, for all its problems was extremely fun to see develop. I think the "Apollo Justice" Ace Attorney trilogy is a lot of fun (extremely generous name aside) and introduces probably my favorite character in the series with Blackquill. I feel like people focus on a game's supposed quality more than they do about how much fun they have with it. I get that quality (or lack thereof) can very much affect how much you enjoy something, but did you have fun with it though? I think it's important to at least try and interact with something on its own terms for a bit, to take it seriously as much as it wants to be no matter how silly, because games are supposed to be a fun experience, whether it be a satisfying gameplay loop or theorizing about and analyzing a game's narrative and individual plot points